My Friend’s Big Fake Wedding

Sometimes you crave for a wedding just for the sake of it, just for experiencing being the the attention that you don’t get otherwise. To enjoy the music, dancing, fun and frolic…..Here, is a chat convo between a friend and I:

Stupidddd headache~ says:

throw me a wedding

Stupidddd headache~ says:

even if there is no groom

 `© says:

wah kiya idea hai

 `© says:

eik achee jaga dinner na kar lain?

Stupidddd headache~ says:

wot abt the joraa

Stupidddd headache~ says:

Me wearing Izzi like ballgown (grey’s anatomy)?

 `© says:

hmmm she was going to show it to someone

Stupidddd headache~ says:

i ll show it to myself

Stupidddd headache~ says:

and invite all my friends

Stupidddd headache~ says:

and bring me good presents

Stupidddd headache~ says:

single life walaee

Stupidddd headache~ says:

no sewing machine

 `© says:

soo

Stupidddd headache~ says:

u can call it “My Friend’s Big Fake Wedding”

 `© says:

lol

 `© says:

 cute

 `© says:

we can have flowers too

Stupidddd headache~ says:

ya no shadi wale garlands

Stupidddd headache~ says:

tulips

Stupidddd headache~ says:

long stemmed roses

 `© says:

hokay

 `© says:

and no baratees?

Stupidddd headache~ says:

na

Stupidddd headache~ says:

Only friends

Stupidddd headache~ says:

no relatives

Stupidddd headache~ says:

or baratees can come in a big car with dhool, sans the groom

 `© says:

yea

 `© says:

singing too?

Stupidddd headache~ says:

sure

Stupidddd headache~ says:

DJ

Stupidddd headache~ says:

dance floor

Stupidddd headache~ says:

and no free-wedding-night-advice

Stupidddd headache~ says:

HA

 `© says:

free-wedding-night-advice hain

 

Stupidddd headache~ says:

from people

 `© says:

oh

 `© says:

jab groom he nae tu faida kiya

Stupidddd headache~ says:

wohi tou kahing

Stupidddd headache~ says:

kae none of that funda

Stupidddd headache~ says:

just fun and frolic

Stupidddd headache~ says:

no VIP treatment for bartaees or relatives

Stupidddd headache~ says:

grab a seat n sit anywhere

Happiness Overload

 

The bd, rather the D-day went well (last year’s was great too). Friends make it worthwhile, by remembering, wishing and planning activities, though the date was kept a hush hush. Still, many remembered, more from afar than anywhere else. Those who didn’t, I rubbed it in their face like an evil entity. There was a delicious chocolate cake on which I binged all day, finished the last slice yesterday. There were pink glass bangles that I searched for in the market specially and wore them that day. There was a weekend birthday dinner with surprise guests, so overall, the getting-older-depression is lurking around me, waiting for the chance to grab, and I am trying to fight back.  

Age is Just a Number~ For Him, Not for You~

The sluggishness and failure to update the blog doesn’t mean that there is nothing to blog about. On the contrary, there is aplenty - insecurities if life in general and a bleaker scenario at work. Life seems to be going somewhere, somehow, as silently as the earth revolves around its axis. And one feels the pain, the disappointments, the ecstasy (no matter how short-lived), the frustrations, the futilities. A life time is lived in each breath, in each moment. And yet life probably is bent on shattering all your illusions. Everyday, the moment you roll of your bed, reality’s rude and cold slap stings you across the face; and every night you lay your head on the bed, life’s bareness starts gnawing your already defeated senses and sensibilities. We try to hang on to whatever we can. We tell ourselves that age is just a number, and yet when the bd day approaches every year, we recoil in fear, count the years on our fingers and the milestones we have achieved. And panic sets in. This happened with my friend, whose birthday we recently ended up celebrating despite the pledge not to celebrate. After work, we went to the mall, exchanged the gift I bought for her (the fabric was irritating her skin), had a lasagna, drowned it with some glorified  gola ganda and then we headed home. In the dark and dingy bus, she shook my hand and said: “thank you for making me feel better!” And I said to myself: “No problem, you would do the same when my big day would come.” Yup folks…age is a number. The real age, the professed age, the mental age, the physical age, the emotional age or maturity, all become a blur…. Especially when the shop keepers, the cabbies, the bus conductors, the customers treat you as a college girl. “Where do you study?” They ask, and I tempted to tell: “I am not a student, I am not even a teacher, I am teacher educator.” So that I might be taken more seriously, but I don’t! I let some notions prevail, unlike the annoyance of yester years, when i used to think that i was not being taken seriously enough  And then when i receive proposals of a man 20 years senior than me, again…it makes me wonder about the irony of life and whether age is a number or a black hole. My two botched yup engagements make me a problematic case, but his track record of multiple live-in foreign girl friends and his near fifty status don’t count anywhere, he is a man, so he is a catch still! As my partner in crime aptly comments: “When we touch the big years, people assume that anything that comes our way, we should be grateful for that.” Our society is strange.

Mithaas- the need for Sugary Sweetness in my Life

I don’t recall when I started developing an aversion towards white sugar, but I have given up the substance long ago. I don’t like the taste and I resent the fact that it’s chemically treated in order to be given that white color. For me it started with sugarless tea and milk, then giving up on biscuits, and now I don’t know what coke or any other fizzy drink or those sweetmeats taste like anymore, because I don’t have them. If only I could have sugarless cakes, chocolates, ice creams and milkshakes, it would have been divine. I forgot adding sugar to the cake I was baking recently and the result ended up in the garbage dump, because even the cats refused to eat it. This forgetful tendency of mine though didn’t have to do anything with choice; it was the amnesia and fogginess that sets in due to low blood sugar level. In summer that happens quite often, there would be chilling headaches, dizziness, mood swings, drowsiness and confusions, but I won’t be aware of what is going on and what I should do about it, because I would be drifting out of my body. And then I eat something sweet, and bam, I am back in my body and senses. So now I have to end up eating more honey and dates, and I am thinking if I should start adding brown sugar (guur) to any sweet dish that I make or those milkshakes that I have. Life also needs sugary sweetness, the kind that doesn’t leave a bitter taste in the mouth afterwards. But all it’s filled for now, the cup of life is laced with sugar daddies or dandies.   

Auroon say Juda Aik Raang

Hence, the sabbatical started with a bang and ended in a whimper. As soon as I arrived at work, cramps came and then without warning and ahead of time, the white starched dress turned crimson. And so I was caught unprepared, with no female in sight for ‘help’. Puked, swooned, drank ORS, dragged myself home, reiterating to the higher ups that I have to leave by afternoon as I have a prior family engagement, and so my leave would start from then. Panic set in once I got hold of idle time on my hand, lack of sleep, rather the inability to sleep for a prolonged phase turned me into a zombie (as if I already haven’t been). So there has been: not much sleep, just the luxury to lie in bed at odd hours; shopping trips; homely projects to complete, a few eat outs and a few meet-ups with friends; and truckloads of tv. Cable is the most prominent relationship in my life, I wish I could encircle my arms around and hug it. I bumped off lots of news, regional, sports channels. Not too bad…..but the vacations ended with a whimper. I went to meet two terminally ill relatives of mine, talked with them, soothed them; heard their memories; lived in, breathed through decades, life, birth, marriage, child-bearing, toils, troubles, eking out a living, having everything one moment, losing it all in the other, heart ache, disappointment, death, longing, the eminent desire to break free, to count each remaining hour not day….and yet to hold back, to hang on, to get well….There verses etched on the maternal grand father’s walls depicting the desire to break free, depicting the desire to die, to vanish, to escape this illness-ridden body and be no more. He used the metaphor of a traveler, a hitch hiker……waiting to leave, sending ahead the message to others gone before him to receive him…. tapestry of a rich life…rich through more turmoil, less blessings….and yet he said to me and my other scavenger friend, victim of a broken marriage: “May you get it all…who tamam kuch naseeb hoon, mohabaat, aulaad, khandan kae hawalee say jo hamein milaey thaey.” …Then, while sitting with the invalid maternal grandmother, I flipped through the family albums, those black and white photos, of old people, dead, disappeared, be gone and by gone….her husband was among them…the ones who were gathered and taken away in the dead of the night and slaughtered (some of the women and children were given safe passage)…..faces haunt from the sepia-toned, doggy-eared pictures…some retrieved from the stuff left behind the confiscators. The maternal uncles went back in search of the grandfather, with the faint hope that maybe he was spared, sent back, released as a POW, maybe he came back; they found nothing, came across just the house full of personal belongings useless to the confiscators……among which they only picked up a particular picture, which now rests in the album accompanyed with 2 lines depicting its painful discovery, our lineage……she [the maternal grandmother] waited for him to return for the most part of her life…..childless they were, there was no one to break the monotony, to help her move on…she stares for most part of the day in space….. counting the remaining days….and through her senses and of the other grandfather, this scavenger, this star trekker traveled though unknown, familiar and rich universe, the billions of fragments, colors, stories…strands that created me, who I am today, where I am today, who I am.  

So the call yesterday morning about someone’s death seemed imminent, i thought that it was about two of those terminally ill realtives, only it was none of these terminally ill family members….but the family friend, my uncle from old middle east days, who rang the door bell only this Sunday…he was a neighbor too…a regular visitor on Sundays…..always discussing books, writing, encouraging but never probing…..always honing in on my triumphs never the set backs, never probing………he chose not to get married because of his sisters…parents died a few years back……now all of them are in advanced age……and now they wont have anyone left anymore to look after them… I saw one of the sisters calling out to him softly, but he couldn’t be awakened anymore…. …… I couldn’t cry there but kept crying all day and all night at home…..

………he won’t be coming around on Sundays, asking after my welfare…the laughter, the kindness gone…one of his verses was:

 

Auroon say Aik Raang Juda Dijae Mujhey

Aik Rooz Jo Bikhar Jaon Tou Hawa Mein Ura dijae Mujhaey

 

By and by every day, the past, its landmarks, its metaphors are dying……and yet newer ones are nowhere to be found…….So now he is gone…..off to a better place, I am told and I am trying to believe….because the supremacy of life after death over life is something you accept as a cardinal of faith but realize wholly and fully only after you experience pain and loss….  

Contemplating on his life and those of others who have died, I keep wondering: what is better? To leave behind kith and kin to cry over you, or to leave no one behind? To work for your whole life, looking forward to retirement, only to die before that? To lead a full life? Which one is a fuller, richer life???? And life qualifies as one with a spouse and kids, according to our society’s standards at least. And what about having it and losing it… So it could be me and my brother years from now? But who has seen the future……but what am I supposed to believe, how am I supposed to have hope…….We would be left on our own too? I cant shake of this feeling lately because of the recurrent patterns of my parents’ illnesses. and for me the pain comes from the realization of ‘no more’….learning to live through loss, pain, futility, death, disappointment, mania…..putting one’s head down on the prayer rug after a difficult day and wailing out in pain….wails …not words

Waiting~

Cloudy skies, gentle breeze, cuckoo birds; some people call it romantic weather. Obviously I cant/don’t. I fancy my room, a hot cuppa tea and some popcorns. A book, but here I am stuck at he office, waiting for more work, waiting for the leave application thingy, waiting for so many things to get sorted out. To hell with all the waiting… I don’t know, so many hours of our lives are spent in just waiting for things…… if one quits waiting, the hope is gone too~ or is it long gone~ ?    

i want my life back~

And so I am back somewhat, I think I have lost a kidney and an eye ball somewhere in the work I submitted – the pink eye and the constant pain in back and uterus signify that. The mammoth assignment not only left me exhausted but disillusioned too, with the whole process, with people, their pettiness, their dumb headedness.

 Some things would not get sorted out, no matter what one does. I pour in my heart and blood and sweet and sincerity and in things, and I see them fizzle out. But it’s ok, it doesn’t matter! They can do whatever they want; I just want my life back. For once I wanted some one to be happy to have me back, to take me out, to spoil me, to celebrate my achievement. Instead you go back to the same loop of expectations and responsibilities. You just start picking up the pieces and re arranging them. And that’s the way it is.

Messages from Far Far Away~

So 

• The baby pigeon finally flew away and didn’t come back, maybe it didn’t survive the flight, or maybe he liked some place better and found someone (maybe’s are safe).
• The stray black cat that was around since two years disappeared on me, I saw her limping away painfully on my neighbor’s wall one day and after a few days, I saw a carcass on the dump that looked like hers. The housekeeper suspected that the rowdy neighborhood boys might have injured it by pelting stones at her.
• The friendly kittens that were living ion the campus for a while were driven away, as the ‘international conference’ was taking place and the directors didn’t want the guests to see the cats or have them begging for food.

 

Us humans are very pompous, we naturally assume that all the space around us is ours. We have a right to it, we can drive others out. I was telling you guys how my parents didn’t like the baby pigeon around and yet didn’t have the heart to drive it away, as it was very weak. Yet its mates didn’t abandon it; they kept on coming, feeding it, keeping company, until he flew away… So last Sunday, when I was finally trying to enjoy my cup of tea and trying to curb down the other irritations of my life, the cell phone ranged mysteriously. It was the newly married friend of mine, calling from abroad, crying and babbling profusely. Saying things like…”sometimes, it’s bad, very bad, they abused yesterday, called me names….i cant take it anymore….i have lost my own life…” I couldn’t hear much, couldn’t say much, I cried myself, until she ran out of credit after a few minutes and the call got dropped. I then went out bought a calling card and called her back, she picked up and said that she couldn’t talk and it wasn’t the right time. I learnt on Monday that they threw her out. Her husband and the first wife – threw her out on the street, with only the clothes on her back, in the cold streets at night, in a strange country and city, where there was no one where she could go, besides a distant aunt, and the motel….with no money. They were taking all the money she was earning from her. She was giving it to them, so that their relationship might stay intact, she took care of the pregnant first wife, while she was a ‘new’ bride herself. She was told on the first night that he wouldn’t have children from her, but would continue to have more children from the 1^st wife, so they can get more state welfare. They used to get intimate in front her, deliberately keep the door open, so that she could see. Covent on the furniture, she bought from her own money. Fly back on the plane ticket she bought, to parade in front of her biradri in a family wedding, as the dammad, while she feigned to look happy in all the jewelry and clothes she bought for herself. And people gawked on here at the work place and in her family over her luck, to have found such a rich businessman and apparently not so old. Qismaat khul gaiii, itnaey saloon baad, they used to say. And we used to laugh and cry on hearing that. And now they have thrown her out, cursing her, calling her names. To the person, from who never uttered a mean word, a cuss in her life. One who compromised after so much time, and after so much heartache, to be left on the juncture again? The hi-fi prestigious doctorate degree from oxford didn’t help. The illustrious trips to one of the best instates from around the world doesn’t help. Yet her ability to earn money and cook delicious meals and stay quite did help – them a lot. Her family here, and her husband there. Yet all these professional women end up making sacrifices in their life, because they want a name, and an identity, the married tag. Because the identity  they forge in the world, thorough their career, isn’t enough. They are looked down upon, they are talked behind their back….chhhchhhc…something has to be seriouslty wrong in her, they say. What solace can you offer to such a person? Tell them about karma. About fairness and judgment. Hasn’t been she test enough? You lose on words, you can just cry. Sometimes even the ability to pray drowns in that numbness. What betterment we indeed wait for and look forward to in life? When there is nothing in the here and now for you, what to look forward to? So matter how much faith you try to have in your own life, you get affected by the pain of those close to you, and you start to get buried in the debris of their problems to. You think, it could be me, or maybe a few years down the road it could be you.  

 

And if that wasn’t enough, getting to know that another friend, who has moved to a different city without her family for her new job and is living with her relatives until her own housing problems get sorted out, is being hit on by her aging paternal uncle, was amusing, very very amusing. The analogy maal-e-ghanimaat sticks….

 

In personal life, all the roses of hopes and possibilities turn into thorns and stick in my palms. The past, it still haunts me, I think of those names, of those associations, that are dead and not dead.

 

Work-related deadlines and squabbles are keeping on my toes…the squabbles that is, the real and hectic work is going to start from Monday. I write tones of emails everyday just to keep myself safe, to remind people of my TORs, their expectations, and ground realities. I haven’t breathed openly and freely in a long time, I am always in a rush. I begin hating my job and my life and then I look at the problems in my friends’ lives, their lack of being under a secure roof, of not having fathers around. i think we should learn to be content with whatever we have, even for the given set of problems, because they rutrn into other worst things, not better……

 

So now I would be off to work for around 2 weeks on that mammoth assignment of mine, and would then have to endure all the attacks these vultures are going to make. So prayers are needed.

The Bald Chick

 

And so the deep and long spell of mania got broken by chronic blood pressure. Just like the heat get relived only after rain. I got so preoccupied by taking care of the low bp that I didn’t have the energy to brood over other things - things that no one can help, its fate and one has to accept it – good or bad. You guys talk about having hope and faith. I just feel that they need to be manifested on something, solid, concrete, tangible. And I am unable to find it. May be it’s me; it’s all me. I don’t know how to cope with life and its challenges.

Anyhoo…  

So one of those pigeon chicks has been left behind. He hatched from the egg a bit latter (4 days after the first egg hatched). So his growth was studded too, yet he was a fearless and curious chap, unlike his brother, who used to cower in corners behind the flower pots all the time. However, the brother was the first one to venture on a solo flight, and then to finally leave the abode. The left behind weak chick grew sullen and afraid after its brother’s departure. The furry bur is growing, but very slowly. The beak is all crocked, the neck is scrawny. The beady eyes blink in recognition and yet in fear on seeing us. He is our pet and yet not quite a pet (one we can’t cuddle), in the sense that my parents complain about the poop and wonder when he would go away, and yet when they are unable to locate him amidst the pots, they grow worried and concerned. I can’t help but make an analogy between myself and it. Neither here, nor there, unable to fly out and yet yearning to fly out in the wide sky. Weary of the surrounding and yet not wanting to let go of its familiarity. Envious of its siblings and relatives….and yet waiting for them to bring him food and company. I am a bald chick myself???

 

Other things…meet-up with a blogger and her entrouge of equally amazing and gorgeous  babes was sensational

Work is a strange mix of deadlines, elations, confrontations, etc.

Nothing to Look Forward to

The hectic, maddening weekend is drawing to an end, and I feel all wriggled and ragged out from deadlines, haggling, arguments, annoyances, irritations. Ticking off accomplished tasks in the daily planner isn’t that exhilarating. Waiting to hear on crucial matters isn’t exactly a joy, answering controversial emails and then not getting any form of acknowledgment is equally annoying. But my friend thinks that I shouldn’t wait to hear from such people, as they have the time to raise issues but not to settle them, especially when they have been proven wrong. But it’s a crazy world, where more time is taken in dealing with procedural issues; issues that are caused by other people’s incompetence, ignorance and egos. And when all this is going on, parents at the home front also started acting up because of the construction work going on in house, which have been due since long ago. Hence, getting relief from any side, I have been in a foul mood all week long. Low bp and severe throat infection weren’t helping either. I got up in the morning after lapsing into an exhausted sleep and the first thing that came to my mind was that I have to go to the ‘war zone’ aka office. And it’s a bad feeling, which determines the quality of the rest of the day and the nature of my interactions these days. And as the day is drawing to an end, there is still a lot to be done, but a relief that I can get down the treated mill for a will, and yet the gnawing fear, the empty feeling, that there is nothing out there to draw my energies, my idle moments, nothing to look forward to besides the TV, the sullen faces of my folks. …. The feeling that maybe there is nothing more for me in this lifetime. We think, talk, place so much faith in ‘life after death’ stance, that life actually begins to look like a chain binding you to this world, which offers you no joy, no relief, no smiles, no respite….just a never ending pile of responsibilities and demands, and this horrid nothingness that gapes at you at the end of the day….